Wednesday, June 7, 2017

New Berkeley IGS Poll Good News for Villaraigosa

A new Berkeley IGS Poll for California governor is out. Democratic LG Gavin Newsom leads Democratic former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa 22%-17%. Newsom led Villaraigosa 28%-11% in the last poll.

This is an ugly poll for everyone except Villaraigosa. Obviously cutting Newsom's lead from 17% to 5% is a huge positive. But it goes beyond that. Since California went to top two, there have been several statewide elections that had only unknown Republicans. Those Republicans tended to split the Republican vote. That's what's happened here now that David Hadley is included. That could mean that no Republican makes top two. That's bad news more bad news Newsom. Newsom wants to go up against a Republican next November. He's staked out the furthest left wing position in the field. That should get him the most votes in the primary and he'd crush a Republican in the general.

Antonio Villaraigosa seems likely to stake out a more moderate business friendly position and he is well established as a charter schools supporter. If he runs a strong campaign raising good money, being a moderate should mean he'd beat Newsom one on one. He'd pick up a huge chunk of the Republican and moderate independent vote while still maintaining his Democratic base with Latinos and Angelenos.

Okay, I hear you say, but Loretta Sanchez was the moderate in the 2016 Senate race and she got creamed. There's some big differences between Villaraigosa and Sanchez. Sanchez wasn't well known, she lacked a moderate track record, money, and strong campaign skills. Villaraigosa seems more likely to have those.

Gavin Newsom is hurt by John Chiang dropping from 8% to 5%. He needs Chiang to take enough of Villaraigosa's support to drop Villaraigosa below a Republican. Chiang is going in the wrong direction. There's a chance that Chiang sees his chances being so low that he runs for re-election instead. The biggest impediment to that is that individual campaign contributions are capped at $7,300 per person for Treasurer but are $29,200 per person for governor. Chiang couldn't transfer any contribution an individual made that's over $7,300.